Word: williamsons
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Many of these characters hastily assemble first collections lest Time catch up with them. The other more humble type of poet sits on a steadily growing pile of work and publishes it only when he is sure his words will strike a chord. Such a poet is Alan Williamson. The poems in his first collection. Presence, have been written over the 12 years Williamson has taught English at colleges from coast to coast. Any of them would probably have made the kind of mark Williamson hoped for if published as soon as written. Taken together, they present a stunning elevation...
...Williamson never falls into the trendy confusion with modern life that so many current poets bewail. Sometimes he cuts straight through characters and their relationships with a calm, deliberate train of thought. The comical "If, On Your First Love's Wedding Day" races through a soap-opera study of a particularly confusing and blue hour. Williamson seems cheerfully to throw up his hands at the end. "What do you say? You say, My first love got married today, if you're drunk enough," Indeed...
...Williamson redefines the modern world from an almost romantic point of view. The elegy "Dream Without End," puts into practice William Wordsworth's idea that beauty is even more vital when resurrected in the memory. And, like John Keats, Williamson sees life as a source of light...
...image of light radiating through glass calls back echoes of Shelley's elegy "Adonais," in which he describes life as "a dome of many coloured glass. Staining the white radiance of Eternity." Williamson acknowledges his debt to that splendid elegy: "And how Shelley outlived his death by writing it..."The Romantic poet, after concluding his elegy to Keats with an image of death by water, drowned and was found with a copy of Keats' poems...
...Williamson refused to discuss the specifics of the project. But Gilinsky said that asbestos was discovered in the office of one professor, not Williamson, and "immediately removed...